Rodgers "really surprised" by "60 Minutes" story

Nov. 6, 2012

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During his weekly radio show with ESPN 540 Milwaukee radio, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers admitted he was startled by his nearly 12-minute segment, which aired Sunday on CBS news magazine “60 Minutes.”

The show followed Rodgers over portions of four months and talked about his journey from Butte Community College to the Green Bay Packers, sometimes favorably and unfavorably pointing out his faults.

In a few instances, the show took aim at Rodgers’ demeanor, disinterest in conducting interviews and his personal life, but what Rodgers found most disappointing was how the program chose to not include hardly any footage from his MACC Fund event in May that they’d followed him to.

“To be honest, I was really surprised,” Rodgers said. “I just felt like the editing of the piece could have been done in a way that was maybe a lot more respectful of myself. If I’m sensitive about anything throughout the whole process, they come to the MACC Fund event in May, which is very important to me and even more important considering the two boys that we lost this year to cancer – Jack (Bartosz) and Bo (Johnson) – who I got to meet Jack, who was very close to me.

“For them to not even show any of the content from that night, any of the kids, not to say anything about the MACC Fund what they do with kids with cancer, I think that was the thing that was most disappointing about the piece is they had an opportunity to do some great things and show some things that I’m passionate about, and they didn’t do that.” If you haven’t seen it already, you can watch the entire segment here: http://tinyurl.com/abwzp85

*While discussing other topics, Rodgers talked about a funny occurrence after he threw a 72-yard touchdown pass to tight end Tom Crabtree during Sunday’s 31-17 win over Arizona. Afterward, he started he began slapping Packers coach Mike McCarthy in the head in celebration of the touchdown.

What Rodgers didn’t know was the pin supporting American troops that McCarthy had been wearing come undone and was actually stabbing McCarthy’s head each time Rodgers slapped him.

“I guess when I was slapping him on the head, I was pounding that pin into his skull, the pointy end,” Rodgers said. “So he said he wanted to slap me there, but he was excited about the play, so he allowed me to drive that pin into his skull a little bit. I apologized for that, but I think we all enjoyed that.”

“I think you have to be worried, I really do,” Rodgers said. “It is good timing because of the amount of injuries that we’ve had, but a lot of our injuries are not just one-week injuries anymore. Jordy (Nelson), who knows how long he’s going to be? Clay (Matthews), it looks like his might be more than just the bye week to get ready. (Bryan) Bulaga, Greg (Jennings), Cedric (Benson) obviously is still on the IR. We have a lot of guys who are counting on to play big roles for us, just haven’t been able to get back or might not get back for a little bit of time. It’s going to be interesting to see how we heal up over this bye week.”

*Rodgers was also complimentary of the team winning four-in-a-row to reach 6-3 heading into the bye despite the injuries.

“I think the thing you really take some pride in is we are winning games. We’re 6-3, it hasn’t always been the prettiest. There have been some pretty displays, but there have been some struggles, as well. You have to feel good that we’ve won those games as of late. We put ourselves in position to control our own destiny for the playoffs and we have five of our last seven against division opponents, so it sets up the way you want it. You look at the schedule before the season, you want to win your division games. If we can do well in those division games this year, we’ll have a good shot at making the playoffs.”